


Awakening (this is who you are)

by Serie11



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/F, First Crush, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Rivalry, Vala Lives, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-01-30 13:50:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12654810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: “Get down the rope!” Bast screamed, and Vala only just pulled her wire rider out in time to grab the rope backwards as Bast threw her down it. Vala screamed as Bast fell, blood spurting as a metal sound shot through the air, but there was nothing she could do as the slip wire took her away.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HI! This is just the first chapter, but I do have a whole story planned and will definitely update. Since I'm not a COWARD like Guerilla Games, Vala will live and be awesome, and you will all get to see that. Thanks for reading!

Vala stretched her legs, covering as much ground as she could. Bast only had a few seconds lead on her, and over flat ground, she was a faster runner than him. She could only hope that he tripped in a hole to make her job easier, but that had never been her – way she would fight and win, on her own merit.

Vala ignored how her lungs were close to bursting and her legs felt like they were on fire, even though there was snow all around. She _would_ beat Bast. There was no way she was going to let him win. The bragging that she would have to put up with for the rest of her life would be unimaginable. Then again, his complaining if she won would almost equal it… but she would have the satisfaction of winning to combat that.

Movement above her on a slip wire caught her eye, and Vala could hardly believe her eyes as Aloy rode it down to land in front of them. Bast stumbled in the deep snow, his weight working against him for once. Vala surged ahead so they were level, but Aloy was in front of them both – she must have gone on the old trail. Admiration bubbled up inside her as Aloy slammed her trophy down a second before she did.

“She didn’t win!” Bast shouted, and Vala resisted the urge to pull the bow off her back to shoot him. All Mother help her, he could be such an entitled prick. And Vala thought that it would be bad if she had won instead of him! “The outcast cheated!”

“An outcast? Win the Proving? Never!” Vala looked up in shock at Mattel – tribe laws were clear. If an outcast cleared the Proving, they were made a brave.

“For she is a brave now!” Vala smiled a little at Mattel’s drama.

“You did it,” Vala said, leaning over and grinning at Aloy, who smiled back shyly. Honestly, Vala thought she looked stunned.

“So are you all, as long as you put your trophy on the alter.”

Vala looked back to see the rest of her age mates in various stages of upset and amusement, the latter directed towards Bast’s obvious anger. Even as her breath calmed, her heart soared – she was a brave! Finally, she could match Varl in this thing, she could prove that she could be as good a spearmate as he was, prove herself in her mother’s eyes.

Vala huffed a laugh at Aloy’s expression, still stunned. “But it is Aloy, once outcast, and now brave, who is the first among –”  

Vala reeled back in shock as an arrow landed in Mattel’s chest. The group of contestants stood, shocked, until another rain of arrows came and knocked Mattal down, and then Vala pulled Aloy into the cover of a boulder, panic and anger ripping through her as the arrows ripped through her fellow Nora.

“Aloy, go!” she yelled, and Aloy ducked with her as the arrows continued to fall. Vala felt like she was about to implode with her anger and fury and fear, but she knew when a situation was hopeless – they were outnumbered and unprepared.

“We can’t stay here,” she said frantically. “That’s the way out.” Vala pointed at the slip wire, which was supposed to be a triumphant journey back down the mountain where her mother and the Nora would be waiting to congratulate the successful braves. “But we won’t make it under fire.” The slip wire would just be a way to paint a target on their backs.

“They can’t shoot if they’re dead,” Aloy said grimly, determination filling her voice. “Keep them busy. I’ll find an angle.”

Vala looked over to a nearby boulder, an emotion she couldn’t name filling her when she saw Bast was still alive. “Bast! Bast, are you with us?”

“I’m with you!” he shouted back.

“Let’s go. Now!” Vala commanded, and both Aloy and Bast nodded. Aloy rolled away into the tall grass, and Vala squared her shoulders, ready to act as a distraction.

The men were all on a high ridge, almost out of range of her bow. “Bast, pick them off while they’re firing!” she yelled, and sprinted out into the open ground.

Immediately the archers focused on her, but Vala was used to dodging attacks – sure, it was usually from irate lancehorns or watchers, but in theory this was no different. She made sure to keep her direction as random as possible so that no one could think ahead and shoot her, but even so she felt an arrow deflect off her arm guard and one send searing pain into her leg. She rolled forward and pulled the string of her bow back. She’d gotten closer, so there was only twenty metres between her and the man she was firing at – a distance that was hard to miss at. She shot two arrows into his chest, before Aloy leapt out of the bushes behind him to finish him with her spear.

She kept dodging, even though her leg was slowing her down, and slowly fell back to the boulders that Bast was still using as cover. From there, they worked together to pick off the last of the men. Her year mates worked with them, hiding with Bast as she drew attention to herself.

A fire arrow caught her, and Vala grit her teeth as she threw herself down into the snow to smother the flames. She got up in time to see Aloy finishing off one of the last ones on the shelf, but Vala didn’t think that was the end of them – she’d heard them talking about reinforcements.

“Quick! Run for the slip wire!” she called frantically. The group she was with ducked across to the next boulder, just as more men crested the ridge. “Stay together,” Vala ordered, knowing they had a better chance then. Aloy jumped out of cover to engage the new enemies, dodging and rolling in a way that Vala could only be impressed by. Together they sniped the men from their boulder. Vala would have run out again, but her leg was covered in blood and there was no way she could move fast enough to avoid their arrows now.

They cleared a wave, and Vala made a decision. “Now! Descend while we have a chance!” Bast waved them forward, and the Nora took the slight breathing space. Vala’s heart eased to see at least three young braves get away safely, the speed of the slip wire taking them far out of reach.

“Go!” she urged Bast. “I can’t run fast enough to cover the distance.

Bast’s face twisted. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

“Go! I’ll cover you,” Aloy said as a new wave of people crested the ridge.

Bast didn’t wait for Vala to agree, throwing her over his shoulder and sprinting through the snow. Vala saw a man come over the ridge with a strange metal object in his hands – he pointed it at them as Bast sprinted towards the wire. Vala’s throat tightened, and she threw her weight downwards so that her body would cover Bast’s back.

A tearing pain went through her, and Vala could hardly register the fact that they had reached the slip wire. “Get down the rope!” Bast screamed, and Vala only just pulled her wire rider out in time to grab the rope backwards as Bast threw her down it. Vala screamed as Bast fell, blood spurting as a metal sound shot through the air, but there was nothing she could do as the slip wire took her away.

Vala felt her grip slipping, on the wire rider and on consciousness. There was no way she would be able to make the landing at the bottom, but she had to stay on for as long as she could, to make the fall from as little a height as possible.

Vala stayed awake long enough to realise she was falling, before everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seeing the first changes here! Don't worry, we'll get back to our favourite protag next chapter ;)

_“She’s slipping. I don’t know if…”_

_“Do better,” a voice said, a familiar voice – mother?_

_“Prepare yourself,” the first voice says grimly._

 

 

 

_A flash. Bast falling, red spraying, Aloy’s face, Varl looking at her disapprovingly –_

 

 

 

“… mess, and everyone’s freaking out you can’t…”

“I can, and I will, Varl. There must be…”

 

 

 

She opened her eyes.

Blearily, Vala stared at the wall. She’s lying on her front, in a cabin, but she doesn’t know which one. There’s no one there. She can’t stay awake.

 

* * *

 

This time, Vala hangs grimly onto consciousness. She’s still in the cabin, but this time there’s someone with her.

Varl is methodically crafting new arrows, testing each one to make sure it is straight and sharp before putting it aside. There’s a pile of arrows beside him, and more wood in another pile.

She coughs, and Varl looked up. “Vala!” he exclaims.  “You’re awake. Let me get the healer.”

Vala stares at the door and blinks, and then Varl is back, Stela behind him. She kneels down beside Vala and touches her forehead.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like a broadhead ran me over,” Vala said. “What happened?”

“You came down the slip wire and fell at the end. You were covered in blood…” Varl said, trailing off when Stela eyed him.

“What do you remember?” Stela asks softly.

Vala flicks back through her memories. Yes, the Proving happened… she came second, after Aloy. Then the attack, fighting off strange men, getting shot in the leg, the Nora running for the slip wire…

“Bast saved me,” she said quietly. “I couldn’t walk fast enough to cover the ground so he picked me up and carried me. There was a man with a strange metal thing that spat fire. He aimed it at us and I covered Bast’s back with my own.” Her hand goes to her back, but it’s covered in a thich swathe of bandages. “He threw me down the slip wire. It took everything I had just to hold on, but I saw him cut down…”

Varl and Stela look grim. “That’s not the end of it,” Varl tried to say, but Stela waved him off.

“Vala needs rest now. Not more worries.”

“What happened?” Vala asked, concerned. “Where are we?”

“Mother’s Heart,” Stela said. “Now rest.”

 

* * *

 

Vala had never been good at taking orders, and this time is no different. Varl and Stela leave, but she doesn’t go back to sleep – now that she’s struggled into consciousness, she can’t bring herself to let go of it.

Things don’t really add up – why was Varl here? Wasn’t he supposed to be stationed at Mother’s Crown? And where was her mother? Sona always came to see her when she banged herself up enough to land in the healer’s hut. And the way Stela had acted; Vala felt uneasy.

Her unease was only heightened by her injuries. Only her back is bandaged, but the arrow wound in her foot that had caused her to limp was nearly healed. How long had she lain here, unconscious?

She struggled to stand and was alarmed to find herself weaker than she thought. There was some cold stew near the fire, and she gulped that down. Then she admitted to herself that the only way she was going to get answers was by getting better and leaving the hut. So she slept.

Varl visited over the next few days, only saying that he had been reassigned when she questioned him about being in Mother’s Heart. He only got a black look on his face when she asked about their mother, and refused to tell her where Sona was. It was times like this that Vala cursed his stubbornness and pride, but he must have promised Stela that he would say nothing to her, and he would not go back on his promises. Sometimes she wondered how they even got along as siblings, but she already knew that answer – it was because they acted like they weren’t. Vala had never been close to her brother.

When Stela finally dismissed her, Vala immediately went to find her brother and some answers. She caught him just as he was about to leave the gates.

“Vala. I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Varl said.

“Yeah, I am. And I want to know what’s going on.”

Varl sighed. “I have to get to my shift at the gates.”

Vala blinked, surprised. “You’re guarding the Embrace gates? But they aren’t normally guarded.”

“This isn’t normally,” Varl said grimly. “Come with me, and bring your bow. But if we have to fight, then you cannot engage, understand? You’re only just off bed rest.”

“I’ll engage if I want,” Vala said, stung. “I’m feeling fine.”

Varl shot her a look. “I promised mother that I would look after you until she came back, and that promise still holds. You will not engage.”

They didn’t have to test Varl’s promise, because they snuck past the striders and watchers easily enough to get to the Embrace gate. The guard on the ground there seemed surprised to see Vala.

“It’s good to see you about again, after what happened on the mountain,” he said as he left.

Vala turned to Varl. “We’re here, tell me what happened.”

Varl sighed. “We were all waiting at the bottom of the slip wire, like we do every year. Then, we hear screams from the top of the ridge – there shouldn’t be any, and we knew things were wrong, immediately. But climbing up to the ridge is hard even in the best of conditions, and our braves were only about half way there when there was a massive explosion from the top of the mountain. I knew immediately that anyone still up there was dead. I had gone with those to climb the mountain, but mother stayed at the bottom of the slip wire. She was the first at your side when you fell, and carried you back to Mother’s Heart. Five contestants were killed, and three proctors.”

“Who survived?” Vala asked, her throat tight. _Five_ of her age mates…

“You, Geel, Yale and the outcast.”

“Aloy,” Vala breathed. “How? She was behind me when Bast made me go down the slip wire.”

"She must have jumped off the cliff a second before the explosion,” Varl said, shaking his head. “She’s still unconscious. The matriarchs took her into the Sacred Mountain.”

“What? Why?” Vala asked, shocked.

Varl shrugged his shoulder. “They just said that she should be there when she dies.”

A vice gripped Vala’s heart. “Did they think she was going to die?”

“They thought you were going to die,” Varl told her. “But none of the metal got stuck in you – it went clean through. But you had an infection, which was why you were unconscious for two weeks.”

“ _Two weeks!_ ” Vala exclaimed. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am,” Varl said. “Mother took the war party after the killers, but they were ambushed the day before yesterday. She took what was left of the war party and tracked them, up north away from the Embrace. None of the braves have been seen since she left.”

Vala gazed north. _Mother…_

“Mother set me to guarding this gate. So here I’ve been, and here I’ll stay.” Some of Varl’s frustration broke through with those words, and Vala bumped their shoulders together.

“Hey, it’s not so bad. Has there been much fighting?”

“Lots,” Varl said darkly. “And not normal machines, either.”

Vala stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“Corrupted machines stalk the Sacred Lands. We’ve pulled back everyone we could into the Embrace, but I fear that they will come here, and the gates will not hold them.”

Vala looked up at the two archers on top of the gate. Three people would not stand long against a determined assault. “I will stand with you,” she said staunchly.

“Have you heard nothing I said?” Varl asked impatiently. “You are still injured. You can’t fight.”

“Well then how am I meant to get back to Mother’s Heart?” Vala asked sneakily. “You can’t send me on my own after all, what if I get in a fight?”

“Oh stop being dramatic,” Varl groused. “You’d probably pick a fight just to prove me wrong. If you really want to stay, go and aid the archers on top of the gate. But you’re coming back with me when I leave.”

“I only want to help,” Vala told him, annoyed by his overprotectiveness. “I’ll be fine.”

Varl sighed, but didn’t say anything else as she began to climb up to the top of the gate.


	3. Chapter 3

“Ah!” Aloy gasped as she jerked awake, her hand going to her throat in an instinctive gesture. There was a scar there, but it felt too old – hadn’t the massive man just attacked her? And Rost had… She bit back a sob.

“Rost…” Aloy murmured, grief filling her. Of course he had been at the Proving. Of course he had been watching over her. She heaved her legs over the side of the bed, bewildered at her surroundings. It looked like the inside of a cabin, but it was strangely shaped. She tried to activate her focus, but nothing happened. “No, no, no,” she said frantically, confusion and loss turning to fear. Where was she? How had she gotten here? Rost had thrown her off the edge of the cliff… she doesn’t think she remembered landing. Or doesn’t want to, anyway.

“I have to get out of here,” Aloy said to herself, struggling to stand. Who knows who had taken her, where she was. She needed to see the sky, to make sure Rost was really gone, to find out what the hell had happened. “I need my focus.” She needed her things – she needed to leave.

“Rost must have saved me,” Aloy murmured as she limped out of the room and down the corridor. “They must have found me before I bled out. But why is no one here? Where am I?” There were candles everywhere, and Aloy followed them as she explored.

“My clothes, good. But where’s my focus?” Aloy dug though her things. “It’s here. Okay.” She pulled on the clothes that Teb had stitched for her, noting that several new stitches covered the material. It must have been ripped in the fall.

She activated her focus, and for the first time realised that the walls were _metal._ There was only one metal place that the Nora could stand. “Am I inside the Sacred Mountain? But only the matriarchs are allowed inside.” Her unease growing, Aloy set off in search of her weapons.

A signal led her to the damaged focus and the rest of her gear, and Aloy picked it all up, feeling better by the minute.

Feeling equipped and ready, she brought out the damaged focus. “Now, what can you show me?”

It was organised in a different way to her focus, files locked somehow. There was one she could access, and when she tapped on it, the large man appeared, making her jump back slightly.

“ _All commanders, halt excavations and proceed at once to the mission point_.”

“You,” Aloy breathed, a red rage filling her. She committed his face to memory – she would find this man. He was the one behind all of this, who had organised the killing, who had _killed Rost._ Aloy stared at him, intent – she was a hunter, and nothing stopped her from bringing down her prey.

_“Avoid all contact with Nora savages – but if you are seen, kill every witness. Target imaging attached. Do not fail.”_

Along with the holo of the man, there was a map. Aloy recognised the mountains as the higher regions of the Sacred Lands – where the Proving had taken place. She swiped the map and it moved, showing her Mother’s Heart.

“Target imaging?” she murmured, opening up the other file.

_“Who says I’m like other Nora?”_

Aloy almost reeled back at the graphic of herself. She rifled through her memories – who had she said that to?

“They saw me thought Olin’s focus,” she mused. But how? She used her focus to record things, read datapoints, mark locations on maps. Not do… whatever was being done here. “How is that possible?” Was it because more than one focus was involved? What didn’t she know about her focus, just because she only had one?

Suddenly another woman flared to life. _“Then make it quick. I’m heading in.”_ Aloy stared at her. She had the same hair as she did, but shorter, and she was wearing strange clothes. The people who had attacked had been wearing strange clothes, but these were different – they didn’t look like any type of armour at all, and Aloy doubted the thin layers of furs kept this woman warm at all.

“Hold for identiscan.” Aloy could barely muster up any surprise over the strange voice. It didn’t sound like a human had said the words, and yet, who else could have?

_“You need to stop listening to Ted and start listening to me.”_

Even her _voice_ sounded similar to Aloy’s. “Where is this from?” she wondered out loud. “And when?” She reached out, as if she could touch the woman, but her hand simply went through the holo. Unsettled, Aloy watched as a bar filled up, proclaiming a 99.47% match. She stared at it, as she came to the only possible conclusion. “Are you my mother?”

The graphic changed, the word TERMINATE appearing, along with a string of numbers. What was the connection between them? If this woman was her mother, why would they come after her just because they were related? What was going on?

A soft sound from behind made her spin, exiting out of the focus menu. She had drawn her bow and was ready to fire, before she realised that it was Teersa behind her.

“Aloy! You are awake?!” She came forward, unconcerned that Aloy still had her bow pointed towards her.

“You brought me here?” Aloy tried to ask, but the Matriarch brushed her off.

“Quickly, you must follow!”

“To where?” Aloy asked, confused.

“To the place where you were born!” Teersa said over her shoulder as she hurried off down the corridor. Aloy stared after her for a few seconds before shouldering her bow and following her. Was she ever going to get any answers, or only have question after question piled up on top of her?

Aloy followed her through the Mountain, candles making the walls shimmer with their soft light. Teersa refused to answer any of her questions, instead just leading for onward, until they came to a steel wall.

“Does my mother look like me, but with short hair?” Aloy asked, wondering why the Matriarch would bring her to this dead end.

Teersa hesitated. “I don’t see how that could be. You were not born of a woman, Aloy. The Mountain is your mother.”

Aloy felt her heartrate double as blood pounded in her ears. “I’m – what? What are you talking about?”

Teersa pursed her lips. “Come.” She pressed her hand to the wall, and to Aloy’s shock, the wall opened on a large chamber, natural light flowing down to join the many candles lit around the edges of the room. Metal and ice told a story, but it was one she couldn’t recognise.

“What is this place?” Aloy demanded, shock still coursing through her.

Aloy stared at the door at the door at the end of the chamber as Teersa told her the history of the room, and how the War Party sent after the killers had been ambushed. Teersa told her about how she had been found – how Lansra thought she was a curse.

“This isn’t a goddess! It’s a door!” Aloy insisted, and stepped up the platform, ignoring Teersa’s admonitions. A red light appeared, and she stared at the image of the woman from the killer’s focus. It was blurry, but she could definitely tell that it was the same person.

“Error. Alpha Registry corrupted. Identity cannot be confirmed. Entry denied.”

“No!” Aloy exclaimed, almost wanting to cry. Why? Couldn’t she know who her mother was? Why was every person, at every turn, setting her back?

Numbly, she followed Teersa to outside the Mountain. Another way she could leave the Sacred Lands, without becoming an exile? Going to Meridian, to find Olin? It was almost too much to think about, so she asked about the Nora instead.

The answer she got was almost just as bad – over half the war party had been killed in an ambush, and now the tribe was on the edge of extinction. Corrupted machines…

“The other High Matriarchs are waiting for us,” Teersa said. “Let me do the talking.” Aloy was happy to let her do so. After everything she had just found out – she needed a time to herself, to think things through. Away from everyone else.

Teersa stepped forward and Aloy watched their power plays. Teersa wanted her to become a Seeker, but Lansra was against the idea. She wondered if Lansra was against all ideas, or just ones that had something to do with her. Lansra left, and Aloy tried not to reel back from her caustic words. Why did she hate her so much, when her only sin was to be born?

Teersa stepped forward, smiling at her a little. “Aloy. By the holy grace of the one Goddess, we hereby anoint you a Seeker of the Nora Tribe.” Aloy blinked, the words washing over her with about the same effect as the soft rain that was coming down.

“No barrier can now stay you from your sacred task. May All-Mother protect you, and sustain you. Stay true.” Aloy looked into the other High Matriarch’s eyes – Jezza? – and she nodded encouragingly as she spoke the words.

Both the older women stepped back, and Jezza spoke. “I will make ready for the Hymn,” she said, leaving them. Was that it? She was a Seeker now?

Teersa seemed to understand her confusion. “In times of great need, the High Matriarchs may anoint a Seeker – a worthy brave sent forth to accomplish a great purpose. No matter where that purpose might take her.”

As she quizzed Teersa a little more, Aloy felt like only the rain was keeping her tethered to her body. It was like everything that had happened since she woke up didn’t feel real – she had been inside the Sacred Mountain, learned about her birth and her mother, and could now leave the Sacred Lands as she pleased.

And Rost was dead.

Teersa directed her to talk to someone named Varl, who would direct her towards Meridian. Aloy thanked her and left, thinking about what Teersa had told her. She promised to herself that she would get the truth about Rost out of the Matriarch, someday.

She had never been inside Mother’s Heart, so she spent a little time on the walk down poking around and trying to get her bearings. Her focus told her that she was in the very south of the Embrace. The rain got heavier, and Aloy ducked into the cover of a building in the settlement, staring around. High walls guarded the way out, and the gate was closed. There were less buildings than she might have expected, but she had always known that the Nora were a small tribe. First the Proving massacre and now the ambush of the War Party would have decimated their numbers.

“Is that who I think it is?”

Aloy turned to see a familiar face peering out of the window of the cabin she was sheltering under. “Vala!” Aloy said, startled. “You’re alive!”

Vala opened the door of the cabin. “I feel like I should be the one professing my surprise that _you’re_ alive. After all, you saw me go down the slip wire. I only heard that you’d been carried into the Mountain, likely to die.”

“Well, I’m alive,” Aloy said, resisting the urge to do a spin. “And I’m happy that you are, too.” A couple of questions she wanted to ask Vala went through her mind. “Why are you here? Didn’t you go with the War Party?”

Vala shook her head, a frustrated expression crossing her face. “I wish I had, but I was unconscious for nearly as long as you were. I woke up five days ago, and I’m only really back up to full speed now.”

“Five days,” Aloy echoed. “How long has it been since the Proving?”

“Twenty days,” Vala said. She smiled grimly at Aloy’s shocked expression. “I know right? That’s how I felt when I found out how long I’d been asleep, as well. But you’re looking good – in better shape than when I woke up, anyway.”

Aloy nodded. “Do you know someone named Varl?” she asked, changing the subject.

Vala laughed. “I wish I didn’t! He’s my brother, and is in charge of the main Embrace gate at the moment. Why?”

“High Matriarch Teersa asked me to find him,” Aloy said. “She said he could point the way to Meridian.”

“Meridian!” Vala exclaimed. “Why would you want to go there?”

Aloy decided to cut to the chase. “I was made a Seeker. I need to find a man named Olin who lives there. Do you know who can open the gate?”

Vala’s mouth twisted as an emotion Aloy couldn’t name flickered in her eyes. “With the War Party missing, Resh has been made War-Chief. You will have to speak to him.”

Aloy thanked her and made her way towards where she could see two people standing on top of the wall.

“Aloy!”

Aloy blinked, and spotted Teb sitting at the bottom of the walls. He thanked her for wearing the outfit that he had made her, and also pointed her towards Resh.

Stomach sinking, she scaled the wall to talk to Resh, who seemed as ill-disposed towards her now as he had been the night before the Proving. Just as he denied her request to open the gate, after bad mouthing the dead, a crash from the Embrace drew Aloy’s attention.

“What was that?” she asked, but Resh ignored her, suddenly intent on the forest. She watched as the trees rustled, and a watcher’s light turned yellow.

“All braves alert! Sound the alarm!” Resh called out, and Aloy’s stomach dropped as she realised that this wasn’t the first time this had happened.

A dark shadow burst out of the woods, moving at an extremely fast pace. Aloy’s breath caught as she watched it crawl towards the herd of striders, eating ground. It paused to shoot something into the striders, red light gushing out of them as they fell to the ground. The red light warped and wrapped around them, and the striders stood, red and angry. Aloy activated her focus, trying to make sense of any of it. The striders weren’t their normal blue anymore – they were red, just like the black and deadly machine.

“What’s happening?” Aloy didn’t turn to look at Vala, but she answered anyway.

“Taking control,” she breathed.

“What?” Vala asked.

“Now isn’t the time to ask!” Aloy said as she grabbed her bow and pulled back an arrow. Braves around her copied her actions, but the arrows glinted off the hard black machine, doing nothing.

A bright spark caught on it, and Aloy turned to see Vala with another fire arrow, already drawn back. Aloy watched it as Vala loosed the arrow, and marked how the fire effected the machine when no normal arrows would.

“Brace yourselves!”

“It’s weak to fire!” Aloy yelled, just as the horde of machines crashed into the gate. “Everyone with fire arrows, ready them!”

“How can you know that?” Resh snarled, but Aloy could see some of the other braves swapping out their ammo for arrows tipped in blaze. “What have you brought on us now, you motherless curse?”

“Shut up Resh,” Vala snarled. “Now isn’t the time! We have to fight!” She jumped down to ground level, and Aloy admired her smooth roll at the bottom. She came up already running. “Braves, to me! Ready your fire arrows, ready your hearts! We must defend Mother’s Heart! For All-Mother! We will prevail, and defeat the demon!”

Aloy felt the mood boost as Vala ran, taking up a position near the cabin that Aloy had talked to her in. Aloy noted the hate twisting Resh’s face before she jumped down from the wall as well. Seemed like she wasn’t the only one on Resh’s bad side.

Another beat against the gate. Aloy knew it would probably only take one more to burst.

“Aloy, fill the gap there!” Aloy looked towards where Vala was pointing – there _was_ a gap in the braves, so she sprinted over, just as the gate burst, and the corrupted striders and the corruptor burst through.

“Fire!” Vala screamed, and suddenly most of the striders were on fire, blaze catching somehow in the red tendrils that cloaked them. “Take down the striders first!”

Aloy shot arrow after arrow at a strider until finally it fell. The corruptor threw an enormous rock at her, so she rolled out of the way as it half took out a cabin. Vala yelled over the chaos, directing braves. Aloy turned around to look for her next target, only to find that all the striders had been downed.

The corruptor leaped, and Aloy sprinted out of the way, flinging herself forward to escape it’s metal claws as they dug into the earth. She scanned it with her focus, and the two cylinders on its shoulders lit up. She switched to her normal arrows and fired as quickly as she could, seeing them strike true into the more vulnerable parts there. She leapt out of the way again as the corruptor swung its tail around, catching several braves with the gesture.

The corruptor fired several small darts from one of the cylinders, and Aloy yelled in pain as one caught her. She rolled away as the corruptor focused on a few of the other braves, and then destroyed the large pile of kindling that sat in the middle of the village. She ducked down and took a moment to bite down on a pain killer and wrap a hasty bandage around her leg, before she grabbed her bow again, ready to fight.

Aloy scanned it again, only to see that a small core had emerged from its head. Knowing instinctively that it was a weakness, she stood still and took her time in aiming. Just before the corruptor leapt again, she loosed the arrow, and it hit hard, staggering the corruptor. A few more arrows from the braves, and it collapsed. When Aloy scanned it again, her focus told her that there were parts to be harvested.

“It’s down!” she called out. Her breath suddenly loud in her ears, Aloy resisted the urge to sit down and go to sleep.

Looking around, she took stock of the damage. The gate had been smashed in, and two cabin’s completely destroyed, as well as Vala’s being half destroyed. Aloy staggered over to a strider carcass and rooted through it, just for something familiar to do. She found the lens untouched, but the normal metal she could have retrieved from it was pitted and burned her fingers – not like fire, but like poison. Uneasily, she pocketed some of it, to look at later.

She could see the unmoving forms of some of the Nora, and her heart twisted. The tribe had already gone through so much – these deaths were not something the tribe could afford. She hoped that there were less of them than if she hadn’t called out that the corruptor was weak to fire.

Other than that, a few wounded braves rounded out the damage to Mother’s Heart.

“Are you okay?”

Aloy turned at Vala’s voice.

“I’m fine,” she reassured her. “You?”

“Probably pulled something that didn’t need pulling,” Vala admitted. “But I’ll be fine. Pitt and Yval though – they’re dead. Not feeling much at all.” She shook her head. “How many more of those things are running around the Embrace? What about the smaller, outlying settlements? What have the Nora done to deserve this?”

Aloy had the sinking suspicion that it was because Olin had brought the killers here. “I don’t know, but I intend to find out,” she said, voice hard. “And I’m going to bring a stop to this.”

Vala gave her a little smile. “Oh, they make you a Seeker and suddenly you’re ready to take on the world, huh?”

“Nope,” Aloy corrected her. “I was ready to take on the world before they made me a Seeker.”

Vala whistled appreciatively. “Okay then! Are you going to go and find Varl, now?”

“No,” Aloy told her, eyes fixed on the dead corruptor. “I need to look at that.”

Vala followed her eyes to the corruptor. “That’s Old World tech,” she said, shaking her head. “Even I can see that. You’re a Seeker, so I suppose it won’t harm you to poke at it. I’ll keep everyone else from bothering you.”

“Thanks,” Aloy said, grateful.

“No worries,” Vala assured her. “Just check in with me before you leave, will you?”

“Sure,” Aloy said, and watched as Vala went over to help with one of the injured braves. She approached the corruptor carefully, as if it could rear up and bite her. “How does it possess other machines?” she asked, more to herself than to the hunk of metal. “What is its secret?”

She started picked apart the corruptor. Her hands started burning, and she looked at the metal a bit more carefully – it was pitted and dented like the strider had been, even though the metal that it had been built out of wasn’t one that Aloy recognised. It must have been picked because it was resistant to the corruption.

“This metal burns,” Aloy said through gritted teeth as she yanked her hand away from the metal. After thinking for a second, she pulled out some corruption glaze root and spread the sap from it over her hands. When she started pulling apart the corruptor again, the metalburn didn’t affect her.

Grinning at her success, she moved along to dissecting the machine. She’d pulled apart many, but this one was new. Aloy scanned pieces with her focus, and tossed useless parts over her shoulder and out of the way.

She picked up more metal burn and some wire, and a damage coil that looked quite useful. But nothing that would suggest that this machine had power over others. Frustrated, she kept looking.

“How did you do it?” she asked angrily. “Show me. You made them obey you, but how?”

She pried back a piece of its body to find a part still alive and sparking underneath. Curious, she scanned it with her focus – to her delight, it lit up. “This,” she said triumphantly. “You did it with this.”

She pulled it off the body of the corruptor and scanned it again to try and make sense of it. Her focus hummed in her ear and the part glowed blue – Aloy looked at the stream of data that was coming in, shocked. “It’s connecting to my focus,” she marvelled. “Then – I can use this? It’s worth a shot,” she said, a plan suddenly unfolding in her mind. She grabbed her spear and used the wire she had found to secure the part tightly to the end of it. Aloy shook her spear, but the override didn’t move. “Now, just have to test it.”

“Aloy!” Aloy turned to see Teb.

“Teb!” Aloy said back. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I didn’t get caught up with the main fighting,” Teb told her. “But what are you doing with the demon? You brought it down, and now you’re pulling its guts out.”

“I figured out how it controls other machines,” Aloy said. “But I need to test it.”

“Well, if we’re headed to the main Embrace gates, there are plenty of striders around,” Vala said as she came up behind Teb. “Are you ready to go?”

Aloy nodded. “I’ll see you around,” she said to Teb. “Take care of yourself!”

“No matter what Resh says, I think you’re blessed by All-Mother,” Teb said seriously. “Walk in her light!”

Aloy turned to Vala. “I see you’ve finished messing around in the demon,” Vala said wryly. “And found what you wanted?”

“Yes,” Aloy said. “I think. Let’s go.”

They left Mother’s Heart, the destroyed gates no obstacle. “Why do you want to go to the Embrace gates?” Aloy asked.

“I need to see my brother,” Vala said grimly. “And the braves there need to know that there are demons inside the Embrace now. They will have to defend the gates from both sides.”

They crossed the river and Vala chose the path, setting the pace at an easy jog.

“Why do you want to find a machine?” Vala asked, as the striders closest to Mother’s Heart came into view.

“A test,” Aloy said. “Let’s sneak up.”

They both crouched and slipped into the long grass, the unsuspecting striders grazing peacefully. Aloy picked on at the edge of the herd, that was conveniently close to where the grass ended.

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered, and leaped out to stick the override into the strider’s side. A blue light began to envelope the machine, and Aloy willed it to go faster. She didn’t want to get spotted by another strider.

The blue light settled, and Aloy disengaged the override. The strider stood calmly, and Aloy straightened up from her crouch. “It’s almost tame,” she said, amazed. She touched the side of the strider, feeling the warm metal under her fingers.

“What did you do?” Vala demanded.

Aloy turned to look at her. “The thing that let the demon take control of the machines – I took it from the carcass and used it. Looks like it works for humans, as well.”

Vala stared in consternation at the strider. “What do you mean?”

“Look,” Aloy said, and jumped onto its back. Vala gasped. “Totally tame, and ridable too.”

The two women stared at each other. “Well, are you coming?” Aloy asked.

Vala hesitated, then reached out to touch the side of the strider. It didn’t move. She walked around to the front, and stared at in wonder it as its light remained blue.

Aloy heard the suspicious whinnies of other striders and turned to see red lights. “Now or never,” she warned, and kicked the striders sides so it started walking.

“Wait!” Vala called out, and swung up behind Aloy as the strider broke into a canter. Aloy leaned down low and urged it faster, exhilaration building even as Vala screamed behind her, from fear and excitement.

They streaked through the herd of striders and galloped down the road, Aloy laughing. “This sure does beat walking!”

“Go right here!” Vala yelled, and Aloy directed the strider down a path. She pulled up her own map and watched as the icon that represented them moved swiftly through Nora lands.

Ten minutes after overriding the strider, they came to the lake near the gate. Aloy urged the strider forward until the gate appeared, and then reigned it in.

“I can hear fighting,” Vala said, concerned, and took off towards the gate. Aloy followed her, and came through the gate just in time to see a young man take down a corrupted sawtooth.

He turned to face them, eyes narrowing as he looked them up and down, before his expression became resigned.

“Sister,” he greeted. “I see you brought a friend.”

“Are you okay?” Vala asked, looking at the sawtooth behind him.

“I’m fine,” Varl said, shaking his hands in a way Aloy recognised – he wanted to get the feeling of corruption off them.

“High Matriarch Teersa said you would know the way to Meridian,” Aloy said, and Varl’s eyes turned to her.

“The capitol of the Carja Sundom? You seek exile?” Varl looked at Vala uneasily.

“Will you ever stop jumping to assumptions?” Vala asked, annoyed. “Aloy has been made a Seeker.”

Varl blinked and the entirety of his attention turned to Aloy. “The Matriarchs have not named a Seeker in my lifetime. What is your task?”

“I must go to Meridian and seek a traitor named Olin,” Aloy told him. “He was one of the main reasons why the Proving was attacked. I have to find out why.”

“I see,” Varl said. “A worthy cause.” He looked at Vala. “And you?”

“I needed to come and talk to you,” Vala said. “I was just showing Aloy the way.”

Varl nodded, relaxing slightly. “Well then, you need to head to Mother’s Crown and talk to Marea. She’ll point the way towards Daytower, the Carja fort that sits at the edge of their lands.” He shook his head. “But be warned – the trail is dangerous. Since the War Party massacre, our lands go unpatrolled, and our borders are unguarded. We have no War Chief to lead us.”

“Isn’t that Resh’s job?” Aloy asked, confused.

Varl and Vala exchanged a look. “Resh is only a temporary replacement,” Vala said grimly. “If he were tested properly, I have no doubt that he would fail. But with so many dead or missing, he is the most qualified. Our mother is the War Chief, but –” Vala cut herself off.

“Sona is missing,” Varl said tightly. “I would go after her myself, but she ordered me to hold this gate with my life, and protect my sister while she could not protect herself.” He smiled wryly at Vala. “I suppose that time has passed, but still, I must guard the gate.”

“The machines have found another way through,” Vala said, angry. “Mother’s Heart was attacked.”

“What!?” Varl exclaimed. Vala related their battle, and Varl’s face grew graver with every word.

“This is unprecedented,” he muttered. “There must be a breach in the walls. I will find it and start repairs.”

“That’s why I came,” Vala said. “I’m strong enough to fight, now. Use me as you would an arrow, brother.”

Varl scoffed. “Never an arrow – those are disposable. But my favourite spear – maybe.”

“Oh, so I qualify as a favourite spear!” Vala exclaimed, smiling. Varl reached over to ruffle her hair, even though she squawked under the attention.

“Well, you’re my favourite sister, so yes.” He turned to Aloy. “Have you any more questions, Seeker?”

Aloy asked about the dangers along the way, and more about Sona, and Varl was quite forthcoming with his answers.

“I should be on my way,” Aloy said, and both Vala and Varl nodded.

“Aloy,” Varl started. “If you could, please look for signs of Sona. If you are going to Mother’s Crown and beyond, you might walk the same trails as she did.” He shook his head. “I would go after her, but I am tethered to this gate.”

“Where was she last seen?” Aloy relented. Vala and Varl had been nothing but kind, and if she was in the area, there might be things that her focus could pick up that would help track the missing War Party.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Aloy reassured him.

“Thank you, Seeker,” Varl said.

“Thanks, Aloy,” Vala said, smiling at her. “Varl might be tethered to this gate, but I am not. How about I meet you at the War Party massacre site? Two bows are better than one.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be along,” Aloy warned her. Vala shrugged.

“I can hunt around the area while I wait. But I’ve got a feeling that you’ll be able to track them.”

Aloy thanked them both again, and then turned back towards the path. Listening to Varl and Vala start to talk about arrangements and ways to protect the Embrace was almost foreign to her.

Aloy’s path led north, and away from the Sacred Lands. She took a breath, and began the journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Now the real changes can begin lmao. And if you were wondering why Resh hated Vala - well, he wants to keep the job of War Chief and knows that she's his rival. I ripped all of Vala's dialogue from chapter one straight from the game, and when I was writing it, I realised how in control of the situation she was. She was the one directing the braves, she was leading. I figured that growing up with Sona would brush off on you, ha.


	4. Chapter 4

Vala looked around the ambush site.

It was the first time she’d been here. She’d thought that she could deal with it – she thought she would be able to be impartial, and look at the tracks to find her mother and the Nora that she led. But this –

This –

Vala stared at the broken trees and the pooled blood that still hadn’t cleared, even though it had been days since the massacre here. She and Varl had brainstormed, and they had gone over the facts, over what had happened. Sona had set off with fifty seven braves – nearly half of the active braves currently in the tribe. Vala was standing in the place where thirty one of them had died.

She had _known_ them, for her whole life – Vire and Faraf would never again rib at each other while giving her archery lessons. Barra would never again ruffle her hair despite her protests. Garon would never ask her about the future and what she would ask as a boon from the Matriarchs when she won – he had lived long enough to know that she had failed, anyway. She wondered if that had grieved him, if that was a reason why he had volunteered to go with her mother. Garon had shared her dream of a more connected Nora, a tribe with influence and power, a tribe that none would dare to attack, a tribe where the Red Raids would have been impossible.

Being Sona’s daughter had its ups and downs. Sona used their cabin as a meeting place to discuss training and strategy almost as much as she used it as a home for her two children. Varl and Vala didn’t share a father, but when Sona had brought in all the different braves, they had always dared each other to go and ask questions, or to steal an arrow from a quiver that they could use in their training bows. Vala had known all the braves – Transt had been the one to teach her how to braid her hair, and had given her the headband she still wore, when she decided to chop her hair off. Farre had snuck her treats when her mother wasn’t looking. Mara had given Vala her first bow.

They were dead.

Vala stared at the destroyed forest and wondered if All Mother had watched their passing, here in her realm. If she had cared about the deaths of her faithful, or if her attention had been focused elsewhere. Vala could almost imagine that the stains of red were her tears, still grieving the bloodshed that had happened here.

 _But if you don’t do anything to fight back, what is the point?_ She wanted to scream the words at the sky, even though it might draw attention, both from machines and people. The scene in front of her made her not care – it made her _angry._ She wanted to fight. She would take them all on, single handed, and win. It was what they deserved. Staring at the carnage, she almost felt like she was angry enough to do it, even. Nothing could take her down when she was like this.

Vala knew that she had said she would wait for Aloy, but she couldn’t stand around and do nothing, or hunt like it was another normal day. Numbly she examined the scene – she could almost see where the machines had fallen on the vanguard of braves, where they had hidden. The War Party had not taken the time to cover their tracks when they had left the clearing, and Vala didn’t blame them.

After feeling like she had collected all the information she could about the massacre site, Vala struck out along the trail that the braves had forged. Along the way were downed striders, not even looted – Vala quietly stripped them for parts, even as their replacements grazed calmly nearby. She didn’t think it would be a good idea to fight right now – not when she was so angry. She always fought best with a cool head, no matter how she felt about fighting when she was angry. It was best to fight when her anger had cooled to a molten arrow that she could destroy her enemies with.

She told herself this several times, but it still felt like a betrayal of herself to leave the striders and the watchers to continue their actions. Faraf had told her that the machines hadn’t always been angry, but Vala had never lived to see it – striders and watchers were dangerous, maybe even more so than a sawtooth, because they lived so close to their settlements.

The trail meandered little, but it continued eastwards. There were scuffles along the way that let her know that the fighting had not been contained to the ambush site. But slowly, the trail faded, until Vala had to backtrack several times so she knew she was on the right path. She was uneasy, because she was getting closer to the old ruins that were cursed ground. She didn’t know what she would do if the War Party’s trail went into Devil’s Thirst.

Probably follow them.

Vala sighed and looked up at the sun. It was nearly touching the horizon. Unhappy, she found a fire place to light for her camp for the night. It would be better to know that she still had the trail, then the blunder over it and destroy it in the dark.

It was late spring, so she was travelling light with her bedding. The fire would drive away most machines and animals, and provide the heat she needed.

It wasn’t the first time she had travelled by herself outside of the Embrace, but it was the first time she had spent a night alone. She felt strangely naked without a spearmate to share the night with. Or maybe she just missed knowing that someone would be watching over her while she slept. By herself, there was no reason to set a watch – she needed sleep. If something tried to attack her, she had her bow with an arrow already strung, and she could fling her bedding off in a second. And she was still wearing her boots, even though she hated sleeping with things on her feet.

Uneasily, she willed herself to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The sound of a rock moving woke her.

Vala leapt to her feet, grabbing her bow and listening for any more movement. A second sound made her spin so she was facing south, and she raised her bow at the person who was just coming into the dim firelight.

“Aloy,” Vala said, stuck between annoyance and gratefulness. When she looked at the sky, it was just beginning to become light.

“I see you went ahead,” Aloy said, walking up to the fire to poke at it. Vala sighed and rolled up her bedding. She wasn’t going to get anymore sleep, no matter what happened now.

“How in All Mother’s name did you track me in the dark?” Vala asked. “I was being careful.” Something moved in the darkness, and Vala realised there was a _strider_ standing there. “How did you track me on the back of a strider?!”

Aloy huffed a laugh. “I’m a good tracker. How long have you been resting?”

“Since sunset,” Vala said. “Do you want to sleep for a while? I will stand watch for you.”

Aloy looked almost shocked by the offer. “I… would be grateful,” she said slowly. “Thank you.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Vala said, puzzled. “I’m rested, you’re probably not. It makes sense.”

“I suppose so,” Aloy said. She pulled out her own bedroll, which was even smaller than Vala’s. Vala gawked at it as it expanded into a thick roll.

“What is that?” she asked, shocked.

“This?” Aloy asked, looking at the bedroll as if it was a normal occurrence. “Oh, I found it when I was ten or so. It was in a ruin, and it’s lightweight but extremely warm, so it’s the best bedding I have.” She shrugged, and pulled off her boots. Vala watched the action jealously.

“Good night. Or morning, maybe,” Aloy said, before she tucked her head down and closed her eyes.

Vala stared at her, turning things over in her head. She looked at the tame strider, still standing where Aloy had left it.

“She is _not_ normal,” Vala muttered. She ventured a little bit away from the camp to gather wood to replace the wood that they had used, never going far enough that she wouldn’t be able to see the camp. After she’d gathered enough for nearly three fires, she sat down on a rock and shrugged her bow off her shoulders.

The bow was good quality, but her mother had a better one, that she had traded for at the Carja outpost, when the Nora’s borders had extended that far. Vala dreamed of having a bow that good one day.

She began sorting through her inventory, organising things and crafting a few arrows. How long should she let Aloy sleep? Three hours, at least, even though she probably needed longer. Vala sighed quietly.

She hadn’t exactly slept easily. Aloy had woken up her up in the middle of a dream – not something that she would call a nightmare, but not a pleasant one either. Vala couldn’t remember what it had been about.

She paced around the camp before spotting a boar nearby. She checked the area was clear before sneaking up on it and impaling it, a swift killing blow. Satisfied with herself, Vala dragged it back to the camp and made quick work of cutting up some meat. She fashioned a quick cooking rack from some stones and the wood she had collected, and butchered the rest of the boar while the meat cooked.

The smell must have roused Aloy, because the other woman sat up, yawning.

“You can go back to sleep,” Vala said apologetically. “Sorry for waking you with the smell.”

Aloy shrugged. “It’s been a few hours, right?” Vala nodded. “Then I’m good to go. After we eat this boar, though.”

She must not have been as tired as Vala had thought. Vala shared the meat that had already cooked, and between them they devoured a good portion of the boar. The rest Vala cooked as quickly as she could, and she and Aloy packed it away.

“Do you want to take the strider?” Aloy asked cheekily, but there was something in her eyes that told Vala that this was a test.

Vala looked at the strider uneasily. “I still don’t know how I feel about last time,” she admitted. “And we’re going into Devil’s Thirst, aren’t we? I don’t think a strider would be a good idea.” She had already told herself that she would go into the ruins if the trail led there. Hopefully joining Aloy would mean some of her Seeker protection would rub off on her.

“That’s why it’s a great idea!” Aloy chirped. “We can race through the area.”

Vala stared at her. “You’re a real adrenaline junkie,” she said, wondering she was admiring Aloy or not. “I suppose we can always jump off a racing strider to fight for our lives,” she said sarcastically.

“I’ve been practising shooting from the backs of striders,” Aloy said. “You get used to it.”

Vala shook her head. “Well, let’s do it then. I suppose you can track from the back of a strider?”

“I have my ways,” Aloy said mysteriously. She finished tidying up the campsite and tucked everything away. Vala followed her towards the strider, looking up at Aloy after she mounted. Aloy raised an eyebrow – Vala didn’t know if it was a challenge or a question, but she pulled herself up on the back of the strider anyway.

Aloy touched the triangle at her ear for a second before she kicked the sides of the strider. Vala unshouldered her bow as the strider cantered along the path.

Aloy must have been the best tracker in the tribe to follow the trail at this pace. She cut through territory that would have been annoying to cross on foot, sprinting away from watchers as they realised they were there. Vala twisted around to try and aim at them, but they passed far too quickly for her to shoot them while the machines were in front of the strider.

“Turn around!” Aloy yelled. “That’s how I do it!”

“Are you crazy?!” Vala yelled back. How was she even meant to turn around while the strider was moving this fast. Gritting her teeth, she swung on leg over to one side, and then the other to the opposite side. It freed her arms so that she could shoot, but it also meant that she was just hanging on with her legs.

“Oh, this is a bad idea,” Vala muttered to herself as she took aim at a watcher that was going to fire an energy blast at them. The golden halo made an easy target, and the watcher fell.

Facing backwards, she couldn’t look forward, but she still recognised the territory. As they got closer and closer to the ruins, she started to feel sick. She hadn’t felt nervous before a fight in years, but this was something different – she knew, instinctively, that she wasn’t meant to be here. It was cursed ground.

“Are you sure the trail goes this way?” Vala yelled.

“No,” Aloy called back.

“What?!” Vala nearly screeched. “Then we don’t need to go through the ruins!”

“I got directions from a brave who told me the last known location of the War Party,” Aloy said, a cursed lot calmer than Vala was feeling.

Vala muttered curses under her breath as she downed a scrapper. The tall metal of the ruins surrounded them now, and to Vala’s surprise, there weren’t many machines around. She took the opportunity to look around at the ruins. She’d seen the ruins from afar – the tallest ones could be seen from nearly all of Nora land in clear weather. The reality of them was different.

The strider had slowed down to a trot. “What’s that sound?” Vala asked, realising the loud thumping she could hear wasn’t coming from the strider.

“I don’t know,” Aloy mused. “There’s a signal up ahead…”

“What’s a signal?” Vala asked, turning around so she was facing forwards again, just in time to round a corner. Both of them gawked at the _enormous_ machine that towered over them and the ruins around them.

“A tallneck,” Aloy said, touching the triangle at her ear again. “They’re exactly as Rost said they were. It must be sending the signal.”

“Rost?” Vala asked.

Aloy didn’t say anything for a minute. She directed the strider away from the path of the tallneck and the watchers that guarded the area. “He raised me,” she eventually said. “He’s the reason I survived the Proving. He rescued me, at the cost of his own life.”

“I’m sorry,” Vala said quietly. She bit her lip. “Thank you, for helping me find the War Party. You didn’t know any of the Nora that were killed – you don’t have a reason to help.”

“Rost would be reason enough,” Aloy told her. “And I knew Bast.” She directed the strider up a hill, near the tallneck’s path. “The Nora are still my tribe. And they’re people, who need help. I can’t just turn away.”

Vala suddenly felt a bit small compared to her. After everything the tribe had done to Aloy, and she still wanted to help?

Aloy stopped the strider. “You could almost jump up onto its back from here,” she mused.

“The back of what?”

“The tallneck.”

Vala stared at her. “Okay, now I _know_ you’re crazy. Why in All Mother’s name would you want to go up there?”

“I need to get up to its head,” Aloy said, even though that in no way answered Vala’s question. “You don’t have to come. Wait here.”

She jumped off the strider and sprinted across the path to an outcropping that rose up out of the ground. Vala watched as she took down a watcher stealthily, and then pulled it apart, while watching the approaching tallneck.

Vala jumped off the strider and jogged a bit further up the path so she had a better vantage. Sure enough, as the tallneck came closer, Aloy leaped onto one of the prongs that was coming out of its neck.

“She is _not_ like other Nora,” Vala said to herself. Actually, she doubted that Aloy was like any other person, ever. Aloy jumped from prong to prong, until she disappeared up on top of the head.

“Well, you got up there. How are you going to get down?” Even though Aloy couldn’t have heard the question, Vala half expected her to answer anyway. Leap up on some tallneck, answer some question that she shouldn’t be able to hear – all in a day’s work.

Vala watched as a pulse of blue suddenly exploded from the tallneck, and she threw up an arm, as if she could block it. It passed through her and the strider harmlessly, but Vala watched as a nearby watcher fell. “What the devil?”

Vala was almost numb to shock as Aloy leaped off the tallneck and rappelled down to the ground. The other woman jogged back towards the path, where she grinned at Vala.

“I knew that was a good idea,” she said.

Vala stared at her. “Are you going to explain that?”

Aloy scratched her head. “Well, you know how I overrode the strider?”

Vala looked over her shoulder at it. “Yeah, although I still don’t know how.”

“Well, I overrode the tallneck.” Aloy shrugged it off. “It has all the information about the area stored in it! Now I know where machine sites are, and the lay of the land.”

“How?” Vala asked, bewildered.

Aloy shifted her weight. “It’s a long story,” she tried to deflect.

“We aren’t talking about anything else,” Vala said stubbornly.

Aloy sighed. “Remember how I told you I took the override off the machine?”

“Yes,” Vala said suspiciously.

“Well, it connected to my focus, which I use to read and use Old One technology.”

“What’s a focus?” Vala asked, but she was looking at the triangle on her ear even before Aloy unclipped it.

“This,” she said. “I found it in a ruin when I was a child. It’s a machine, one that I control.”

Vala stared at the triangle uneasily. “There’s a reason old tech is forbidden,” she tried to say, but Aloy cut her off.

“But why? This has only helped me. It lets me log things, record things, read datapoints and any language it recognises. It’s never done anything terrible.”

“You said that it used the same thing the demon used,” Vala pointed out. “How do you know that it isn’t controlling it, now?”

Aloy made a face. “Because that’s not how it works.”

“How do you know?” Vala pressed.

“Well, it still does everything that it’s ever done,” Aloy told her. “All that happened is that I’m using it’s abilities for myself.” She hesitated. “If you took a bow off an enemy, would you be afraid that the bow would turn on you?”

“Of course not,” Vala scoffed. “But a bow isn’t alive.”

“And neither is this,” Aloy said.

“Machines are just as alive as we are,” Vala said. “And that corruptor was definitely alive.”

“But we _killed_ it,” Aloy pointed out. “You were there. You helped take it down. Are you afraid that the wire and metal I also took from it will rise up against me?”

“No,” Vala acknowledged. “But the wire isn’t still working. It’s inert. That override is not inert.”

“The brain that was using the override is gone,” Aloy insisted. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Vala frowned at her. “I suppose you are a Seeker,” she said. “All Mother wouldn’t let you be possessed by a demon.”

Aloy’s face twisted, but she turned away before Vala could properly read whatever emotion had been displayed there. “Being a Seeker wouldn’t have any effect on it. We should go on,” she said, voice cooler than it had been. She nodded to a rock as they passed it. “Here’s the rock I was told about. This is the last place the War Party was known to be.”

Vala looked up, and recognised where they were. “Devil’s Outlook,” she said, looking at the back of Aloy’s head. She was upset about something, but Vala didn’t know what. Obviously All Mother would protect her, as a Seeker – had something happened? Or was Aloy unsure if All Mother would really protect her? She _had_ only just been made a Seeker. “I know this place. When the braves have to come near Devil’s Thirst, this is often a meeting point. It overlooks most of the ruins, without being inside them. The War Party stopped, here, obviously.” She nodded at the fresh signs of people at the campsite.

Aloy nodded. “No one would have left this bow behind. They must have taken losses.”

Vala looked up the trail as Aloy poked around the campsite. She’d been to Devil’s Outlook before, but hadn’t been up the brave trail that led away from it.

“There’s a trail here,” Aloy commented. Vala looked at her feet – tracks that were a few days old could still be seen in the mud. It hadn’t rained since the War Party had been here. More telling was the spatters of blood that followed the footsteps.

“They took casualties,” Vala said heavily. “Come on, let’s go.”

They followed the trail, and Vala admired the way Aloy held herself – casually lethal. She jumped up rocks and across pylons with ease.

“Corrupted watchers,” Aloy murmured to her darkly. “I’ll take the one on the right, you go for the one on the left.”

Vala looked at where Aloy was looking, and saw the peeling corruption for herself. Shuddering, she took to the grass while Aloy vaulted up a small rise.

Aloy took down her watcher with an arrow to the eye, and Vala leapt out of the bushes to take the remaining on with her spear. She gritted her teeth through the pain as the corruption nipped at her skin, hungry.

Vala yanked her spear out of the carcass and tried to rub the feeling off her palms as Aloy ripped a few pieces out of the watchers.

Together they followed the brave trail, until they came to a meadow. “Look,” Aloy said. “A dead sawtooth. Let’s check it out.”

“I’m staying here,” Vala said. “I can see the corruption on that, even if it’s already dead.”

Aloy dropped off the edge of the ledge without further ado, and Vala looked out over the valley, towards the Embrace. They might not be on cursed land right now, but she would always know where her heart was, and it was in those green hills.

A rumble to her right jerked her away from the view, and Vala dropped from the ledge in time to avoid detection by a sawtooth. Gritting her teeth, she prepped her fire arrows, crouching low in the grass as it walked past her. Taking a deep breath, she stood up, and aimed at a vulnerable looking spot.

The sawtooth spun as she fired her arrows – three fire arrows later, and it was burning. She switched to her normal arrows and fired them as fast as she could, aware that Aloy was running for an angle, her hand at her… focus, her bow ready to be drawn. Vala shot off another arrow, and then one of Aloy’s arrows took off the power cell.

Vala leaped away from an attack, sprinting to get some distance from the sawtooth. Aloy kept firing arrows as Vala distracted it, acting as a bouncy and annoying bit of prey.

Then half a dozen arrows flew from the trees, and the sawtooth collapsed, dead. Vala whirled, but her heart unclenched when she saw her mother. She been so _worried_ – the last time she had seen Sona was the day before the Proving, when her mother had presented her with the lantern she had made for Vala. She had been afraid that it might have been the last time she saw her.

“Mum!” Vala called out, checking to see that the sawtooth was dead before she jogged over. “You’re alright!”

“And you are back up on your feet, and wasting no time getting into trouble,” Sona said. Underneath her words, Vala could tell that she was pleased.

Aloy joined them, and Vala nodded at the other woman. “Mum, this is Aloy. She’s a Seeker. Together we were tracking you down, to make sure that you were okay.”

Sona looked Aloy over. “I see that you’re proficient with a bow,” Sona said. Vala resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“It’s okay, you can say she’s a good shot.”

Sona sniffed. “And I see that you are feeling well enough to be out fighting sawtooths. I told Varl to watch over you.”

“And he did, but I’m ready to fight now. I thirst for vengeance as much as you do,” Vala vowed.

Sona nodded. “Very well. I’ve tracked some of the killers that track the Proving. Will you lend me your strength, and follow?”

Vala and Aloy nodded in tandem. “Good,” Sona said. “Then let’s go. The killers are just over this ridge, digging the cursed earth.”

Vala fell into her customary position just behind Sona’s left shoulder. Something in her settled. This was _right_ – hunting with her mother, _finally_ doing something to avenge those who died at outlander hands.

“The killers are digging up corruptor demons,” Sona said, voice hard.

“I know of them,” Aloy offered. “One attacked Mother’s Watch. We killed it.”

“We?”

“Aloy and I,” Vala said. “And the braves stationed there. It wasn’t an easy fight.”

“Grim news, if the demons have reached that far south,” Sona said. “But we will put an end to it.”

Together they followed Sona, and when Vala looked over, Aloy had a fierce expression that told her that she wanted revenge as much as Vala did.

They came to a ridge overlooking a sharp valley that Vala immediately felt wasn’t natural. A chill ran up her spine. _Digging in the cursed earth… Why?_

Sona peered over the edge. “Hours ago, I sent braves into the trees below. On my signal, they will attack. The enemy and their demonic machines might outnumber us, but we will have fury on our side.”

Vala nodded and looked out over the campsite. There were a lot of people strolling around down below.

“We might have more than that,” Aloy suddenly said. “See that? It’s blaze. We use it to burn, but they use it to blast. It’s how they dug out this pit.”

“So we put fire to it, and then –”

“Boom,” Aloy said, sounding very satisfied.

“Then let us begin,” Sona said, and Vala recognised the purpose in her voice. She was ready to act, and act decisively. It was one reason she made such a good War Chief.

“Wait a second,” Aloy said, raising an eyebrow. “Give me some time to make an approach. If I end up alerting them, open fire.”

“Stealth?” Vala asked. Aloy grinned a little at her, and Vala couldn’t help but smile back. That smile was for _her._

“It’s usually a help,” Aloy said.

“Very well,” Sona said, checking her bow over. “Let’s see what you can do.”

Vala watched as Aloy nodded, then slipped away through the tall grass. She lost sight of her, but still looked at the place where she had disappeared. Her mother shifted, and Vala shook her head, checking her supplies. She’d used quite a few arrows in the fight against the sawtooth, and had less than half remaining. She’d have to sit down and craft some soon, or be stuck with just her spear, like Varl.

Vala saw a sentry drop out of the corner of her eye. “She’s a sniper,” Sona muttered, more to herself than Vala. Vala watched for the next body to fall, and from that, calculated where Aloy was.

Aloy blew her cover by leaping down to destroy one of the corrupted watchers that were prowling around, and Sona gave the signal. Vala stood, and joined her arrow with the others that were now raining down on the killers in the camp. A scrapper fired a volley of energy blasts, so to escape them Vala slid down the slip wire, her teeth bared in a mix of a grin and a snarl.

In the pit, the enemy was concentrated and her allies were not. Vala shot at anything that moved, listening to the ruckus of the machines coming from above. An arrow rebounded off her leg guards, and she silently said a prayer of thanks for the new mods that she had installed on this armour that would mean she didn’t have to worry as much about ranged attacks.

By the time they were all dead, Vala was sweaty, bloody and tired. She leaned up against the wall and watched as her fellow Nora strolled through the camp, staring at the strange equipment and stranger things they were doing with it. This might be the only chance that they get to see something so close to a ruin.

 _And you,_ she has to remind herself. This is probably the last time she’ll ever get to look at something like a ruin, because ruins were – tainted. She sighed. Riding through Devil’s Thirst with Aloy must have done her head in. And yet she can still remember the tang of surprise on her tongue, when they rounded the corner to see the tallneck – how strange and new it had been.

She shook her head and turned to the nearest body. Vala rifled through the man’s pocket’s, but didn’t find anything that would identify who had sent him and what in All Mother’s name they were doing at this cursed digging site. She looked up to see that Aloy had finished her own stripping of the bodies around them and was talking to Sona. And… her brother. Who hadn’t been here for the actual fight, of course. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Varl was always leaving her with the dirty work – now that Vala was an adult, apparently that hadn’t changed.

Vala jogged over just in time to hear his words. “… place not here, with you and Vala? Is our need for vengeance not a shared thirst?”

“I’ll look around,” Aloy said awkwardly, obviously disliking being caught in the middle of their spat. Vala could hardly blame her, but after years of it, she was used to Varl and Sona fighting. Aloy peeled away and Vala came to stand with her family.

“Do what you want,” Sona said, shaking her head. “Everyone else does.”

“Mother,” Varl said softly. Vala raised an eyebrow at him.

“Fan out and see if you can find anything,” she suggested. “There’s got to be something that points to their next base.”

Sona and Varl nodded, and Vala resisted the urge to go after Aloy, who had set off purposefully through the dig site.

There were a lot of covered mounds of dirt, and more canisters of blaze, but not much else. Annoyed, Vala tracked down Varl to ask if he’d found anything.

“Only that these people lived like pigs,” he said. “Their living quarters are a mess. And how could they stand to be around corrupted machines? I don’t understand.”

“There’s so much that doesn’t make sense,” Vala agreed. “Why did they attack the Proving?”

Varl shook his head. “We just have to keep looking for answers.”

“Let’s regroup with mum,” Vala suggested, and made their way back over to Sona.

She shook her head when they asked if she’d found anything.

Aloy trotted up, and Vala turned to look at her. She was unsurprised when Aloy started talking, with their next clue.

“I found something,” Aloy said. “The rest of the killers are camped inside a ‘Ring of Metal’. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Damn them,” Sona said. “The Ring of Metal lies in the ruins of Devil’s Grief. That ground is taboo.”

Vala bit back the urge to disclose that she’d come here via the ruins, riding on the back of a strider. Her mother would think she had gone insane!

“I will return to the Matriarchs... beg them to make an exception,” Sona said, but her pinched face said it all. She knew that the Matriarchs would forbid it. The War Party had already lost too many. Even with the killers still out there, all the braves would be called in.

“There’s no time for that,” Aloy said.

“If you come with us Aloy,” Vala said. “Perhaps your Seeker blessing will protect us.” Ahem. Just suggest it now, so if it ever comes out that Aloy took her through the ruins, she wouldn’t be thrown out of the tribe.

“Do not presume to ask such a thing of the Seeker,” Sona said, but Aloy interrupted her.

“I’ll be happy to,” Aloy said. “I want revenge as much as you do.”

Sona nodded, looking pleased. “I will send scouts ahead. Our force will assemble at the above Red Echoes and launch our attack from there.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Aloy nodded. “I’ll see you there.”

She took off, and Vala watched as she left.

“That woman isn’t a normal Nora,” Sona commented. “But somehow, I think that’s a good thing.”

Vala could feel the empty space Aloy had left behind, and couldn’t help but agree. There was something different about Aloy. And Vala felt like Aloy would need every difference she could get her hands on in the days ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am now free of all exams, and need to catch up on nano, so expect more updates soon!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, moral of this story is, don't promise quick updates because you'll get stuck writing a chapter? And I know this story is tagged as post canon... and I will get there, I swear!! In like, another four or five chapters :'D

Aloy jogs up to the campfire with her mind and heart churning.

She’s been out of the Sacred Lands for almost three weeks now, and she doesn’t know if the familiar forest settles her or disturbs her. Things have been so – wild, unpredictable. She’s travelled through deserts, seen more machines than she had even thought possible, had found a traitor and met a king.

But she was no closer to finding answers about herself.

Maker’s End had held answers, but even more questions. She had a name for the mysterious woman – Elisabet Sobeck. But who was she? Who was Ted Faro? Why had anyone thought that making war machines could be a good idea? And why was Sylens interested in her?

She was supposed to be heading north, to the Grave-Hoard, but she needed something straightforward to focus on – or as straightforward as the Nora and the killers could be, at any rate. Even this had its mysteries, but they were human, and Aloy thought they were more solvable than the ruins of a civilisation that had fallen a thousand years ago.

So here she was, at the camp just above Red Echoes, ready to get some revenge. Rost’s death still weighed heavy on her – every night before she went to sleep, she would hold his necklace in her hand. She had lived her whole life with him – had rarely slept more than a few metres from him her entire life. Half of the time when she felt off centre, she wondered how much of it was to do with being hundreds of kilometres from where she had grown up, and how much had to do with the hole that Rost’s absence left in her life. She wondered what he would think about her, now – a Seeker, who had journeyed to Meridian and back.

There were a couple of braves waiting around the campfire, and they all stood when she approached.

“Seeker!” one said. “You are here. I will go, and tell the War Chief to make ready.”

He sprinted off south. Aloy sighed and took his place by the fire.

“Word was, you were dead,” one of the other Nora said, a woman with dark skin and two blue stripes down her left cheek. “Some of the younger braves almost worked themselves into a frenzy, and went into the ruins without you.”

The words were said casually, but Aloy could sense a sharp intelligence underneath them, and the woman’s eyes were hard. She swallowed.

“I needed to leave the Sacred Lands,” she said, as simply as she could. Both of the Nora flinched slightly at her words. “I was tracking a traitor – the man who sold us out at the Proving, and who sent the killers after us.”

“Did you find him?” The other Nora at the camp was a man, older than the woman. A swirl of blue adorned his forehead.

“I did,” Aloy confirmed. “And he told me many things. Including where I might find more information about his leader, and who directed the attack on the Proving.” It wasn’t quite a lie, but it was close – the words didn’t sit very well on her tongue. But Aloy had no desire to try to explain the mystery of Elisabet, and how her own past might have tied into the attack.

The man bared his teeth. “Seeker, did you find the one responsible?”

“No,” Aloy admitted. “But I have his scent, and he will not escape me.”

Both Nora nodded slowly. The man bowed his head and offered his arm out. Aloy grabbed his wrist, and he clasped hers. She’d seen the gesture between the Nora before, but had only performed it three times, with Rost, Teb, and Vala on the night before the Proving. It was supposed to symbolise the trust between two people in a harsh land, and that they could rely on one another for aid. Between the Nora, it also formally granted the use of the other’s name, if one wished.

“I am called Gahltha,” he introduced himself.

“Aloy,” Aloy said in return, granting him the use of her name. Gahltha smiled, an air of confidence coming from that smile.

“It is an honour to go from a known-name to a spoken-name, Aloy,” Gahltha said.

“No problem,” Aloy reassured him. She hadn’t really gotten used to people calling her Seeker yet. And everyone outside the Sacred Lands seemed to want to identify her solely by her tribe. Having someone call her by her name was nice.

The woman held out her hand. Aloy grasped her wrist. “My name is Elspeth,” she said.

“Aloy,” Aloy said again. Elspeth nodded.

“We were stationed here to wait for your arrival,” she said. “The braves have been keeping watch. At first, it felt like most of the War Party was here – but then they were needed elsewhere. Corruption still runs thick within the valley and even in the Sacred Lands, and meat still needs to be hunted, and things still need to be built. Our borders have been mostly unguarded, even though I think a few of the younger braves have attempted to patrol it between them.”

“I see,” Aloy said, something like guilt churning in her chest. “When do you think everyone can gather here?”

Elspeth and Gahltha looked at each other. “Dawn,” Elspeth decided. Aloy looked at the sky – it was just past midday.

“Well, then we have some time to pass,” Aloy said. “I’ve got meat – do either of you want to try some Carja spices?”

* * *

 

The sun had just risen, and the camp was swarming with braves.

Aloy had greeted Varl earlier, and he had told her what he had been doing – leading the few Nora who patrolled the northern border, apparently. Aloy hadn’t known where the border was, but he had told her that a river guarded it – one that the Nora called Mother’s Edge. It wasn’t too far from the campsite they were currently at, which was why Varl had arrived before sunset the day before.

Nora had trickled in through the night, and apparently the rest that were coming would join them soon. Aloy had yet to see Vala or Sona – the only Nora she knew was Varl. And Gahltha and Elspeth, who had proved to be good company. There was a rapport between them that Aloy didn’t think was surface level, and yet they had told her that they were not mates. She had spent the previous afternoon trying to puzzle them out, a welcome distraction compared to the bigger things that were swirling in the back of her mind.

The Nora called her Seeker, and Aloy had not clasped wrists with any of them besides Gahltha and Elspeth. Dinner had been loud, and she had gone apart to sit on top of the crag they were camped under – where she could hear their voices and see their smoke, but have a buffer between herself and their noise. So many people in one place – it reminded her of Mother’s Heart. She’s spent all of her life with only Rost for company, and the sheer amount of people gathered below was more daunting than facing off against a herd of tramplers.

She had retreated to the top of the rock again when most of the camp had begun to stir. Eating rations and crafting arrows was easy to get lost in, so when she heard footsteps on the rock behind her, she spun, caught off guard.

Vala smiled at her. “A little bird told me that you had camped out here. Makes you look very mysterious, you know.”

As if Aloy needed any more mystery surrounding her. “You know that I was an outcast. They’re just… so loud.” She had thought that Meridian had cured her of her aversion to crowds of people, but something about being surrounded by the Nora made her skin crawl.

Vala laughed. “Yeah, that doesn’t change, even if you’ve lived with them your whole life. I suppose you get used to it, though.” She sat down beside Aloy and looked out over towards the ruins. “You would have gotten used to it to, if you hadn’t needed to leave. If the massacre hadn’t happened.”

Aloy looked at Vala, surprised at the sudden vitriol in her voice. For a second, she can almost imagine it – the normal life of a brave, defending the Sacred Lands, being accepted, having friends, and maybe one day a mate…

“Things would have been different,” Vala said, and Aloy shook herself lightly.

“They would have been,” she said softly.

Vala looked at her. “You were gone a long time,” she said. “A lot of people thought you were dead. Or weren’t going to come back.”

“I had things I needed to do,” Aloy said. “Remember I told you about Olin, the traitor? I found him.”

“What did he tell you?” Vala asked, eyes hungry.

“He was blackmailed into working for the killers,” Aloy said, frustration coming through. “He didn’t know much, in the end. But he pointed me towards another clue. I investigated that, and only found more questions… an old trail, one that’s hard to track.”

Vala made a frustrated sound, and Aloy fought not to echo it. _Time is a hunter’s greatest asset._ Rost’s words went through her head, one of the phrases he had repeated the most. Aloy had always wanted things to be done _now_ – she wanted success and answers. She was so tired of waiting. Sometimes it felt like that was the only thing she’d been doing, her entire life. Wait for answers. Train so she could have the opportunity to ask one stupid question. Wait, wait, wait. She wanted to _take_. Aloy sucked a breath in and let it out. Soon, they would descend on the killers, and soon she would have some revenge for Rost.

“How about you? How are things?”

Vala shrugged. “More strained than usual. My mother’s disappointed in me and doing a poor job of hiding it.”

“Why?” Aloy asked.

“I didn’t win the Proving,” Vala said, raising an eyebrow. “So Varl’s the favourite child at the moment. He’s less rebellious than I am, and Sona’s looking for something to ground herself with right now. Taking care of the Nora and having a child who follows all the Nora customs suits her.”

“And you don’t follow Nora customs?” Aloy asked, suddenly curious.

Vala smiled. “Well, my earring was given to me by a Carja trader, and if I won the Proving, I would have asked the Matriarchs to let me go to Meridian and act as an envoy between our tribes. So yeah, not really traditional.”

“I think more ties between the Nora and outsiders are a good idea,” Aloy said, enthused. “And I like your earring.”

Vala grinned. “I’m glad.” She looked out over the ruins, face becoming more serious. “I have to admit though, I don’t like the idea of going into the ruins. It doesn’t feel right.”

Aloy scratched her foot against the rock. “They’re just ruins. The only thing inside is some machines. You saw that, when we went through them.”

Vala cast an uneasy look around, like someone might be overhearing their conversation at the top of a giant rock. “Maybe,” she admitted. “But it still didn’t feel right to be there. The Old Ones died for a reason. Their spaces aren’t ours.”

Aloy couldn’t bring herself to agree. She knew how the Nora felt about ruins, but hearing the words come from Vala made her heart feel heavy. What did it matter if they were places of the Old Ones? Everywhere used to fall under that category. Some places were just more obvious than others now.

“There’s nothing there that can harm us,” Aloy tried to say instead. “I know you can handle a few machines, and everyone is going to be thirsty for blood.”

Vala nodded, though she didn’t look happy about it. “Some of the braves are more hesitant than you seem to think. My mother doesn’t like going into the ruins, not at all. And her opinion is brushing off against everyone else.”

“You think some of them won’t come?” Aloy asked, biting her lip. Even if none of them came, she could probably take out a good chunk of them by herself. But a few would certainly escape.

“I think that they’re on a line,” Vala admitted. “If _I_ had died in the Proving, then I think my mother would be a falling blade behind this venture, and all the other braves would follow her. But since she loathes the ruins so much, and there aren’t any personal reasons for going inside, she doesn’t have the drive that she usually has in every other area. People can tell, and it’s putting everyone even more on edge than they already are.”

Aloy chewed over her words. Vala seemed to have thought things out. “Do have an idea as to how to get them all…” she trailed off, waving her hands towards the ruins. “Invested?”

Vala tapped her fingers against her quiver. “Without my mother’s full support, they’re looking for someone else to lead the way. You were gone for so long that their immediate fire has cooled. Everyone still wants revenge, but none of them are crazed for it anymore.” Vala met Aloy’s eyes and held them. “There are two leadership positions here – you and Sona. Sona has already made her position clear. _You_ are the one who will lead us into the ruins – we are counting on your blessing to keep us all safe. You have to reassure them.”

Aloy stared at her. “You’re kidding,” she said, even as she knew Vala wasn’t. Vala just shook her head.

“You don’t have to, of course. But then everyone will only look to Sona. And I think that means that a lot of them will stay here. Oh, to patrol the border or hunt, of course, but that won’t be the _real_ reason they’re staying back.”

Aloy stared down at the milling mess of people at the bottom of the rock. Give… a speech. She was suddenly wishing that she’d asked Erend how he’d calmed the Nora the night before the Proving. He had such a good way with words. Aloy relied more on sarcasm than anything, and she doubted that the Nora wanted to hear that.

Vala was still looking at her expectantly. Aloy shoved down a sharp spike of anger – she was here for _her_ vengeance: why couldn’t the Nora come for their own feelings as well? Why was it _her_ responsibility to calm them and lead them?

“I would do it, but they would only see me overstepping my bounds,” Vala said quietly. “They’re scared. They want to go in, but they’re scared to. Only you can help with that, Seeker.”

Aloy wondered if the use of her title was meant to remind her of her responsibilities or her shackles.

“I’ll do it,” she said, hoping her voice sounded more confident than she felt. “I’ll talk to them.”

“Great! I’ll let my mum know and she can gather everyone,” Vala said. “It’ll have to be soon, so come down when you’re ready.”

She left, and Aloy wondered if she could just crouch on top of this rock forever. She sighed. Well, there was no use putting it off. Reassure them and get their blood pumping. She could try.

By the time she made her way down to the bottom of the rock, the braves were gathered. Vala was standing next to her mother – they were talking softly, even though there was nothing soft about either of their faces. Vala’s mouth was pinched and Sona’s eyebrows were lowered.

Aloy cleared her throat as she got closer. Both women looked at her.

“Seeker. My daughter says that you wish to address the braves?”

“Yes, War-Chief. I know that some of them are hesitant about going into the ruins.” Aloy chewed the inside of her lip. Hesitant, because they thought it was cursed. Right. How was she meant to get around that?

Sona stared at her, eyes searching. Aloy sucked in a breath and tried not to look awkward.

“Very well,” Sona said. “There are camps guarding the Ring of Metal. We need to take them out before advancing. Everyone here knows the situation and where they need to go. We were just waiting for you, and then I can give the order.” She inclined her head. “I cede the stage to you.”

“Right,” Aloy said, feeling a little awkward. A few of the braves were focused on her, but most were still rumbling and talking to one another.

“Braves!” Vala called out. “The time is near to descend! But first, listen to the words of the Seeker, before she leads us to our revenge!”

 _Great._ Aloy smiled a little at Vala, and she nodded, stepping back so Aloy was standing alone.

Aloy faced the gathered people. This was a bad idea. “These men have taken precious lives from us,” she said slowly, speaking up so everyone in the clearing can hear her. “Far, far before their time. It is only by the sacrifice of someone I held dear that I am standing here, before you now. I grieve him, just as you grieve your sons and daughters, your friends and tribesmen. And now the people who did this squat in these lands like a fetid wound, drawing disease to them.” She took a shuddering breath. “Like all wounds, it needs to be cleansed before it can start to heal. Only you can help me with that. With our gathered power here, they stand no chance before us. These foul men deserve nothing but overwhelming force.”

She stared into as many eyes as she could. She wouldn’t play on their beliefs, not when she couldn’t share them. But she could remind them of their duty.

“We owe this to the fallen Nora,” Aloy said heavily. “I thirst for vengeance. There is an injustice here, one I need to reconcile. Will you all join me?”

Aloy could only hear her heartbeat in her ears for a few long seconds.

“I will join you,” Vala said, voice loud and clear as she stepped up to Aloy’s side. “It would be my honour.”

“I will join you,” Elspeth said, stepping forward, eyes hard.

“I will join you,” Gahltha echoed her, and then braves were all stepping forward, hands on bows and spears, teeth glinting in the morning light.

“Braves! Ready your spears!” Sona called out, and the gathered Nora hummed like a taut bowstring plucked, ready to fire wherever their War-Chief desired.

Aloy slipped off to the side, ready to head to the camps that Sona had pointed out to her. She was very glad to shelf her Seeker duties and let Sona give the orders to the rest of the braves.

“Not bad,” Vala said by her side. Aloy looked at her out of the side of her eye.

“I’m glad someone thinks so,” Aloy said, voice half joking.

“They all do, as well,” Vala pointed out. Aloy looked over her shoulder. The braves were swarming, hungry for blood, listening to Sona’s orders carefully.

Aloy met Vala’s eyes, and felt herself blush. Cheeks red, she couldn’t take her eyes away from Vala. The other woman stared back just as carefully. Aloy didn’t know what she was searching for in Vala’s eyes – maybe for something that would finally make sense. For something good in the unrelenting harshness that her life had become.

“Can I come with you to scout the camps?” Vala asked.

Aloy blinked. “Um. Yeah.”

Vala nodded. “It’ll be a good chance to see everyone in action,” she mused, more to herself than Aloy.

Aloy looked over the lush green forest below them, hiding machines and cold blooded killers alike.

“Well, no time like the present,” she said. Vala laughed.

“Lead on,” Vala said, and Aloy flashed a grin at her, hoping it didn’t look too strained.

They headed down the slope together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! And bonus points if anyone recognises where I stole Elspeth and Gahltha from ;)


End file.
